Cheshire fraudsters jailed for 21 months

TWO Cheshire businessmen who ran a debt business and “milked their clients for all they were worth” by spending their money on flying lessons and feeding an online gambling habit, have been jailed.

 Benjamin Humphreys and Daniel Moore who ran Churchwood Corporate Services, a debt solutions business based in Alderley Edge, were sentenced to 21 months in prison at Chester Crown Court for fraudulent trading.

The pair, who both live in Wilmslow, were also banned from acting as company directors for  seven years.

They pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading and misconduct in the course of winding up when they appeared at court on July 26 last year, but for legal reasons the sentencing was adjourned until this month.

The court heard that between 2004 and 2006, Humphreys and Moore ran Churchwood Corporate Services and targeted companies who had been served with a winding-up petition from HM Revenue and Customs.

The defendants persuaded the companies to sign up as clients, promising the owners and directors that CCSL would negotiate with HMRC for a delay in the winding-up proceedings.

But instead of helping their clients, the pair took around £100,000 of the clients’ money and used it to fund their expensive lifestyle, both spending on holidays, and at restaurants and off-licences.

Daniel Moore used clients’ cash for flying lessons and Benjamin Humphreys used it to support his significant on-line gambling activities.

As a result of the dishonest trading, three client companies, all successful businesses albeit with cash flow problems, went into liquidation.

Michael Williams, deputy chief investigation officer at the Department for Business (BIS), said: “Through their company Mr Humphreys and Mr Moore purported to give assistance, and therefore hope, to the directors of failing companies.

“However they did the exact opposite. By using the money held on trust by them to live the ‘good life’ they put those companies in a far worse situation, losing money they could ill afford. This is a disturbing and callous part of the case.”

Sentencing the pair Judge Hale remarked that Humphreys and Moore had “milked their clients for all they were worth”.